This invention generally relates to soft, pliant skin cleansing products. More particularly, this invention relates to soft, pliant skin cleansing products which have a low density wiping zone and which are treated with a lipophilic cleansing emollient. Still more particularly, this invention relates to soft, pliant anal cleansing webs, generally referred to as toilet tissue, which are treated with a lipophilic cleansing emollient.
Cleansing the skin is a personal hygiene problem not always easily solved. Of course, the common procedure of washing the skin with soap and water works well, but at times soap and water may be either unavailable or inconvenient to use. While soap and water could be used to clean the perianal region after defecation for example, such a procedure would be extremely burdensome and therefore dry tissue products are the most commonly used post-defecation anal cleansing product.
The perianal skin is marked by the presence of fine folds and wrinkles (sulci) and by hair follicles, both of which serve to make the perianal region one of the more difficult anatomical areas to cleanse. During defecation, fecal matter is excreted through the anus and tends to accumulate in hard to reach locations such as around the base of hairs and in the sulci of the skin's surface. As the fecal matter dehydrates upon exposure to the air, or upon contact with an absorbent cleansing implement such as tissue paper, it adheres more tenaciously to the skin and hair, thus making subsequent removal of the remaining dehydrated soil even more difficult.
Failure to remove fecal matter from the anal area can have a deleterious effect on personal hygiene. The fecal matter remaining on the skin after post-defecation cleansing has a high bacterial and viral content, is malodorous and is generally dehydrated. These characteristics increase the likelihood of perianal disorders and cause personal discomfort (e.g. itching, irritation, chafing, etc.). Further, the residual fecal matter stains undergarments and causes unpleasant odors to emanate from the anal region. Thus, the consequences of inadequate perianal cleansing are clearly unattractive.
For those individuals suffering from anal disorders such as pruritis ani, hemorrhoids, fissures, cryptitis, or the like, the importance of adequate perianal cleansing takes on heightened significance. Perianal disorders are usually characterized by openings in the skin through which the bacteria and viruses in the residual fecal matter can readily enter. Those people afflicted with anal disorders must, therefore, achieve a high degree of perianal cleansing after defecation or risk the likely result that their disorders will be aggravated by the bacteria and viruses remaining on the skin.
At the same time anal disorder sufferers face more severe consequences from insufficient post defecation cleaning, they face a greater difficulty in achieving a satisfactory level of soil removal. Anal disorders generally render the perianal region extremely sensitive and attempts to remove fecal matter from this region by wiping with even normal wiping pressure causes pain and may further irritate the skin. Attempts to increase soil removal by increasing the wiping pressure results in intense pain, while attempts to reduce the discomfort associated with wiping by reducing the wiping pressure results in an increase in the amount of residual fecal matter left on the skin. When using prior art anal cleansing products, the sufferer of anal disorders is thus faced with the Scylla of inadequate post defecation cleaning and the Charybdis of increased wiping pressure.
The prior art products used for anal cleaning are essentially dry, high density tissue paper products which rely exclusively on mechanical processes to remove fecal matter from the perianal skin and are hereinafter referred to as conventional products. Thus, the conventional product is rubbed against the perianal skin, typically with a pressure of about 1 pound per square inch (psi) (7 kilopascals) and basically scrapes or abrades the fecal matter from the skin. On the first few wipes, the upper portion of the soil layer is removed because the wiping process is able to overcome the soil-soil cohesive forces that exist within the fecal matter. A cleavage is thereby created in the soil layer itself with the upper portion of the fecal layer being removed and the lower portion of the soil remaining adhered to the perianal skin.
Conventional tissue products are absorbent and with each successive wipe the fecal matter becomes increasingly dehydrated, causing the fecal matter to adhere more tenaciously to the perianal skin and hair thereby making its removal difficult in the extreme. Pressing the tissue forcefully against the perianal skin will remove more of the fecal matter but, as discussed hereinbefore, this alternative is intensely painful for people suffering from anal disorders and can excoriate even normal perianal skin possibly causing irritation, inflammation, pain, bleeding, and infection.
To reduce the abrasive effect of the tissue and to increase its softness impression conventional tissue is generally manufactured having smooth wiping surfaces (i.e. little surface contour or texture). To further improve the comfort and cleaning performance of conventional toilet tissues, the prior art teaches treating such tissues with various additives. Of course, a wide variety of treated paper products, both for anal cleaning and for multifarious other uses, have long been known and many such products are currently being marketed.
The prior art teachings seek to improve the characteristics of conventional products by merely treating the paper with an additive. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 302,073 and 2,833,669 to Wheeler and Mainz, respectively, teach the concept of applying an antiseptic or disinfectant to a paper web. Additionally, U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,687,625 and 3,264,188 to Mackenzie and Gresham, respectively, teach treating the paper web with an organic chemical additive to improve the comfort and cleaning ability of the web. Likewise, German Offenlegungsschrift publication No. 2,260,612 to Scheffler and U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,619,280 to Scheuer and Re 29,052 to Bucalo, disclose a toilet tissue treated with an additive to enhance a variety of characteristics of the paper such as cleaning and softness. Finally, Canadian Pat. No. 977,197 to Schapira teaches a sanitary paper treated with a variety of substances such as deodorants, epidermal emollients and bactericides.
The prior art products, particularly those used for anal cleaning, are high density tissue paper products which have a small void volume in the wiping zone and treatment of these products with the various additives suggested in the prior art can improve some of the product's characteristics (e.g., softness, antibacterial properties, etc.) depending upon the additive used. If only the cleansing properties of the tissue papers are considered, however, the addition of an additive may or may not improve the cleansing ability of the paper. For conventional prior art tissue papers the addition of some additives may actually reduce the cleansing ability of the paper.
The prior art skin cleansing products lack the aspects of the present invention whereby improved skin cleansing effectiveness is obtained by treating a web having a low density (i.e., high void volume) wiping zone with a lipophilic cleansing emollient. The present invention thus exhibits improved cleansing effectiveness when compared to prior art products and also exhibits an unexpected cleaning improvement when compared to the corresponding untreated low density web.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a skin cleansing product having improved skin cleansing properties.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a product having a low density wiping zone which acts in concert with lipophilic cleansing emollients to cleanse the skin.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide a product having a high void volume in the wiping zone which acts in concert with lipophilic cleansing emollients to cleanse the skin.
These and other objects of the invention will be more readily apparent when considered in reference to the following description and when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings.